Zinga zings Evans

I finally found what a commenter mentioned in a comment to a completley unrelated story below. Here's the letter to the editor in the Q.C. Times from talking head, Andrea Zinga. What's your opinion of her opinion?

Zinga: Evans must be held accountable for BRAC job loss

This is outrageous. Once again, the Quad-Cities takes it in the gut for an ineffective congressman.

BRAC makes its recommendations and now there’s an 85 percent likelihood that we are losing 1,982 more jobs. The fact is that some 2,000 of our permanent residents now face an uncertain future. For some of them--former employees of Maytag, Case, Caterpillar, IH, Butler, Gates--they face it again.

These jobs are not being eradicated. They’re being moved to places like Baltimore, Indianapolis, Houston and Columbus, Ohio.

Look at which states and areas gained jobs and which lost. In Illinois, the overall loss is 2,700 jobs. At 1,982 we take the hit. The Defense Department also estimates that almost as large a number of related jobs in the community will disappear in the wake of final action.

Why is this? Well, one reason is probably that, if the Department of Defense has to stick it to a Congressman, it might as well be Lane Evans. He never votes for them anyway. Through the years he has voted, over and over and over again, against defense, against the military, against the lives of our fighting men and women, against our livelihoods in the 17th District.

Last election he decided he’d better “talk the talk” regarding the Arsenal. Remember? He said he would be working hard to expand civilian employment there.

At the Quad-City Development Group’s news conference Friday, the congressman told us he will “fight” and “protest.” Just how many times are we willing to go through this charade?

We need a congressman who fights for us on the front side, not the back side, of these devastating decisions.

At the town hall meeting at 7:30 a.m. Monday, the congressman stayed 10 minutes before leaving "for a meeting with BRAC commissioners, one that by his own acknowledgement had not been set up yet, on a day the commission was involved in hearings.

There were some winners in Illinois. Peoria’s military base gains jobs. Active Congressman for Peoria: Ray LaHood. In southern Illinois, Scott Air Force Base gains 700 jobs. Active Congressmen for that area: John Shimkus and Jerry Costello.

I said in my last campaign that Lane Evans is ineffective. That for 22 years, we have watched 12,000 jobs leave the 17th District on his watch. Barely a half-year into this term, that number grows to 14,000.

I do want to salute the massive local effort at lessening the impact of BRAC, which helped us retain the manufacturing sector on the Island.

Of course we are at war, and the manufacturing sector is performing magnificently. But, so do those 1,982 white-collar employees.

If our congressman can’t help us hold onto Arsenal jobs in war, what does that bode when we’re again at peace?

For that matter, how efficient is it, economically or in any other way, to have three local task forces, two paid lobbyists, a $100,000 per year injection from eight of our area cities, and the congressman’s staff, all scrambling to do what he should be doing--and that’s standing up for the people he claims to represent.

How long are we going to accept the excuse that he’s “doing the best he can”? Even discounting the temporary nature of the 181 jobs in JMTC (Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center), more than two-thirds of the net loss of base jobs in Illinois is in this one Congressional district--from an Arsenal with unique capabilities, available space, a secure location and a decorated workforce.

Every time we have voted to give Lane “just one more time” we have effectively voted to kill another 1,500 to 5,000 jobs. When do we begin to hold him accountable?

Andrea Zinga

Guess Andrea's core argument is that Lane isn't Republican and she is. Pretty weak.